SAVING THEIR BACON....WHAT THANKS????

Truman Asks Meatless Tuesdays, No Poultry or Eggs Thursdays
On October 5, 1947, in the first televised White House address, President Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays to help stockpile grain for starving people in Europe

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Meat Industry Council Asks Price Ceilings on Livestock: Requisitioning of Animals if Growers Refuse to Sell Also Urged -- Two 'Meatless Days' a Week Opposed as No Economy

4 Steps to Save Food Offered by President

Price ceilings on livestock, and Government requisitioning of cattle if growers refused to sell at maximum legal prices, were recommended yesterday by the National Meat Industry Council.

The executive board of the council, after a series of week-end conferences, went on record as opposed to two "meatless days" a week on the ground that it might lead to heavier rather than lighter consumption of meat.

Jack Kranis, council president, said that many families, through the use of fish, poultry and vegetable dinners, were eating meat on fewer than five days a week. He said that general observance of two "meatless days" would tend to standardize five days of meat eating, thus increasing the meat consumption of many families.

"If every family will reduce voluntarily its consumption of meat, whether it now has meat on the table three, four, five, or six days a week, the nation will achieve a maximum saving of meat and reduce the demand for grain to feed cattle and hogs," said Mr. Kranis. "This will also produce a downward pressure on meat prices, and help curb living costs."

Mr. Kranis suggested also that housewives buy the cheaper cuts and grades of meat, rather than choice steaks and chops, to bring down prices and reduce waste. He said that 75 per cent of the cheaper meats were not being used on the average American dinner table.

"If the housewife will make greater use of the cheaper cuts," said Mr. Kranis, "we will have about 25 per cent more use of the entire animal. This will help feed starving Europe and cut our meat bills at home. All that is needed is for the housewife to learn how to cook the cheaper cuts. They are fully as nutritious as the choice cuts if properly prepared. Unskillful cooking will, of course, produce unpalatable dishes. It is time the American housewife learned how to cook the cheaper cuts."

The Meat Industry Council's board decided that price controls in the saving of many millions of bushels of wheat. He expected other industries using grain to make similar contributions.

He disclosed that farmers would be asked to curtail the use of grain to feed livestock and poultry, to increase the efficiency of feeding and marketing operations and to use substitutes whenever possible.

In addition to consumer conservation, to be followed "wherever America eats," Mr. Luckman announced the starting of a national meal-planning service, in which experts from the Government and industry would supply information about the most economical and plentiful foods on the market and suggest meals conserving grain and grain products.

Another development of the day was the summoning of the Senate Appropriations Committee, one of four committees to decide on the need for a special session, to assemble in Washington on Nov. 18 to take up consideration of a $580,000,000 emergency relief program for Europe this winter.

The White House broadcast, which established a precedent by being televised for the first time in history, also included George C. Marshall, Secretary of State, W. Averell Harriman, Secretary of Commerce, and Clinton P. Anderson, Secretary of Agriculture.

The Secretary of State, bringing the nation's foreign policy into the American home, put a share of the responsibility for the country's role on the international stage during the bitter winter months upon every citizen.

Food from the United States, Secretary Marshall said, would deter the march of hunger, cold and collapse, not only enabling Europe to recover its economic stability but also contributing to the resolution of a crisis that could mean the difference between the failure or attainment of world peace and security.

Bringing international diplomacy in as an unseen guest at the table of every American family, Secretary Marshall declared that the American larder was the "vital" instrument of peace and called on the people to "tighten our belts, clean our plates and push ourselves away from the table" to relieve the hungry of Europe.

Taking cognizance of the passage of two years since the ending of the war in Europe, the Secretary of Agriculture devoted his broadcast to an explanation of the tribulations of the continent that had retarded the agricultural recovery of western Europe.

Reporting from personal observation and the data obtained by his department, Mr. Anderson laid the situation to unparalleled agricultural circumstances that brought floods and drought.

With our own supplies of urgently needed gains below domestic needs plus export requirements, yet with food as the "cornerstone" of European recovery, he made it plain this country had to offer a helping hand and "to do that, we must conserve at home, both at our dinner table and in our farm feed lots."

The Secretary of Commerce described from first-hand knowledge the narrow margin that divided sufficiency and starvation in the European existence.

Mr. Harriman, who headed a special Presidential committee to assess the capacity of the United States to assist the war-stricken countries of Europe, dismissed considerations that shipments of machinery and agricultural and industrial equipment would be ample to facilitate reconstruction of the continent.

To those in want, he contended, only food mattered and the workers and farmers of Europe would not be able to labor without the sustenance vital to production.

"Machines alone cannot restore Europe's productivity," he said, "Machinery is of no use without men and men can be of little help without food."

The Senate Appropriations Committee is one of the four Congressional committees with whom rests primarily the fate of the program of emergency aid for Europe and whose decisions will guide President Truman in determining whether to call a special session of Congress.

In calling the members of the Appropriations Committee to assemble here on the eighteenth, Chairman Styles Bridges set a date eight days after the Senate and House Committees on Foreign Affairs jointly begin their hearings on European relief.

The House Appropriations Committee has not yet been called and its chairman, Representative John Taber of New York, is in Europe. Senator Bridges stated, however, that the House Appropriations Committee would also hold hearings, following the Foreign Policy committees.

While the latter committees could recommend legislation to provide stop-gap relief for Europe, the Appropriations Committee must implement such authorizations and recommendations with the provisions of the necessary funds.

The Foreign Policy Committees and the Appropriations Committees of the House and Senate will consider President Truman's proposal for $580,000,000 of emergency relief to Europe before the end of this year, Mr. Bridges said.

The Foreign Policy Committees will first consider the authorization and hold hearings at which Secretary of State Marshall or Under-Secretary Robert A. Lovett are expected to report their findings on the political and economic situation abroad and make definite recommendations.

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees will follow up with hearings to consider recommendations not only of President Truman and the State Department but also of the two foreign policy committees.

Senator Bridges, who participated in the conference here Sept. 29 between President Truman, top Government officials and leaders of Congress, said he had informed the President that he felt Nov. 18 was an appropriate date for the Senate Committee on Appropriations to meet because by then the foreign policy committees will have had a full week to consider the proposals for relief expenditures.

Fourteen members of the committee, headed by Senator Bridges, are scheduled to sail from New York on Oct. 8 for a survey of conditions in Europe so that they will be prepared with first-hand information on the needs of all European nations asking American aid.

They are scheduled to return to this country before mid-November after visits to London, Berlin, Frankfort, Munich, Vienna, Athens, Trieste, Ankara, Rome and Geneva.